Politics: left vs right

Self-tutoring about US politics: the tutor mentions the difference between left and right.

If I understand the Bible correctly, it predicts that life will make less and less sense near end times, but people won’t notice. Some of its most surprising claims have come true, including that one.

Some Americans seem to have trouble distinguishing “left” from “right.” Moreover, the words “liberal” and “conservative” seem to have become aligned with “left” and “right,” respectively. However, there’s confusion, whichever way you turn.

Putting it simply, “left” means power to the government, while “right” means power to the individual. Leftists like big government with long reach; hence, communism is leftist. Rightists like personal liberty, but if there needs to be law, it should be as local as possible. Therefore, rightists believe in small government – the smaller, the better. The US was rightist in 1776.

Lately, some supposed rightists are doing leftist things in the US. One example: a new law in Arkansas which exposes librarians to prosecution over harmful materials in libraries. (That’s my understanding of it.) Next, we have Senate Bill 92 in Georgia, which enables (once again, as I understand it) a state-run commission to apply oversight to and even remove locally elected prosecutors.

Both the “libary law” in Arkansas and the “prosecutor law” in Georgia take power away from an individual and put it in the hands of the state, which is leftist behaviour. Yet both, it seems to me, are supported by Republicans. (Nowadays, the narrative will typically equate “rightist” with “Republican” – questionable in some cases.)

Do Americans really know left from right? Some diehards from the Cold War era have claimed the US is tracking towards Communism ever since it abandonded the gold standard (early 70s). Now, you be the judge:)